HELLO!

Okay, so here are my attempts at making excuses as to why I haven’t written in so long:

1. Everyday for the last 2 months our electricity has been off from about 9am to 6pm as the power company has been replacing their transformers. So of course businesses like internet cafe’s have been closed during the day. Could I have gone in the evenings? Yes, but I was busy watching the world cup and I don’t really like going out at night. Wow, have I become old and boring? I used to love going out at night.

2. Life has been so routine and practically boring until recently that I was really at a loss for what to write. At least now things are happening, so here’s an update on our lives.

Michael is supposed to be starting work soon as the chef of a new American restaurant opening up in Mukono. This is a huge answer to prayer! Michael has been without steady work for the last year so of course it was putting a strain on us financially. This new source of income will help us to sustain the kind of life we want to live and will also give Michael an opportunity to put more capital into his travel company for marketing and such. The company is now fully registered as Wildcat Safaris Uganda. There is no website yet but it will soon be possible.

Another answer to prayer came last week when I FINALLY got my Dependent’s Pass which says I can stay here legally for the next two years. I emphasize “finally” because we applied for this pass last year in October. They said it would be ready in five days. Ha! Nine months later I’ve got it!

There were some unclear things and misunderstandings about the visa I got from the airport when we arrived here in May of last year, and at one point Internal Affairs was trying to give some ridiculous fine of over $4,000! Thank God one of Michael’s uncle’s is a powerful person in Uganda and was able to convince the higher-ups to wave that fine and give us the pass for the normal fee. The fact that we didn’t pay a single bribe to the officials and still got the pass is a miracle, though it is part of the cause for it taking so long to process. Internal Affairs is apparently one of the most corrupt ministries in Uganda. Anyways, God helped us through 100%.

In celebration of finally being fully legal in this country and not having to deal with Internal Affairs anymore, we decided it was time for a little vacation. We considered it the honeymoon we never took in Uganda. We went to Mabira National Forest just for the weekend and had a relaxing and refreshing time in the privacy of the thick woods. It is an absolutely beautiful place where we were able to spend some quality time together before life becomes different and very busy for Michael. We have consistantly had 1 or 2, sometimes 3 friends/relatives at a time living with us since October of last year so this was a good chance to get away and be alone for a couple days.

e were able to take a simple forest walk for a couple of hours though we covered little ground when you look at the forest as a whole. It is massive. When we drive through it on the highway going 60/70 mph it takes a good 20-30 minutes to get through it. We saw plenty of red-tailed monkeys on our walk and some exotic birds and butterflies. I even fell in the mud once along the way! I mean, someone had to make a funny memory.

was also nice just to have someone else make dinner for us. There was a fire pit behind our cabin so we made a campfire in the morning...not as exciting as it would have been if it was at night, but we couldn’t get firewood in the dark. The most unfortunate part of the trip was that we had no camera. Oh well, we have our memories.

We also took a side trip to Jinja to visit the source of the Nile and a good American cafe there. I never thought I would describe a cheeseburger as “refreshing” but I had one, and it was indeed very refreshing. Jinja is only about a 25 minutes drive from Mabira but we had an impossible time getting a taxi so we ended up hitch-hiking with a couple who had a personal car. As we conversed we discovered that the man works with internal affairs! Pretty funny since we took the trip specifically to celebrate being done with dealing with internal affairs, but it was okay. He was a good guy and we got a free ride to Jinja.

That’s all for now. I will try harder to keep you all posted as life goes on.